I've been slowly decolonizing my digital, but as commenters often say, yet you're typing this on an iPhone. It's stupid but true. Whatever software you use, the hardware itself is insecure, down to the kernel, which can quite possibly explode in your hands. Meanwhile, the border Gestapo have machines to hoover up Apple and Android data (with your passcode, or do not pass Go) and the Cloud Gestapo infests Mac and Windows too. Any security is superficial as long as you remain in the imperial tech stack, which goes all the way down. There is no alternative to the designated alternatives or at least, there wasn't, until now.

Like some freak event isolating finches onto an island where they evolve into a new species, Huawei was cut out of the imperial IT system, their executive abducted in the 51st state, and they were otherwise told to fuck off and die years ago. But they did not roll over. Huawei (a Chinese, employee-owned company) had an ‘all-scenario’ strategy brewing and they got cooking. Their idea was HarmonyOS, an operating system not just for smartphones, but for computers, cars, watches, TVs, whatever you could throw at it. This was not merely a replacement Android but another idea entirely.

All the old OSes evolved in a different world where computers and phones were very different beasts and watches and TVs and cars were not even thought of. But to people today these are all just screens, hiding a spaghetti western of operating systems and crude hacks keeping the illusion going. It's often a huge operation connecting your phone to a car, or moving a movie to a TV, and nevermind controlling the thing with your watch, because the system isn't designed to operate that way. You can find crude hacks or apps to make these things work, but nothing is designed to ‘just work’ this way, you have to go way back into the technologies evolutionary history to do this, ie start over. Which was precisely the opportunity given to Huawei by its extradition from the imperial ecosystem.

Because Huawei was cast out of the walled garden, they got an evolutionary opportunity. They could design an OS for this century instead of one permanently rooted to the old. I'm not saying that HarmonyOS magically solves these problems, but they are able to address the problems at a much more fundamental level because they are starting over. They could imagine what integrated OSes would mean from the ground up, rather than building rickety skybridges between existing skyscrapers, each holding millions of people, all screaming if you move one bit of furniture. Thus, besides being just an iOS/Android alternative, HarmonyOS is actually an iOS/Mac/watchOS/TV OS/CarPlay/Android/Windows/Chrome/WearOS/Android TV/Android Automotive alternative. One pipe instead of spaghetti soup. This is not actually a replacement or a copy, it's something entirely new.

I've been impatiently watching the evolution of Huawei's HarmonyOS for years (I want out), and it's finally borne full fruit. Every Huawei phone shipping (in China at least) is running HarmonyOS this year, along with most tablets, watches, some cars, and now computers. HarmonyOS has evolved around artificial US sanctions, yes, but also around the artificial separation between different OS types (computer, phone, car, etc). The OS is not so much about discord with the US as it is harmony across devices. This is new, and it's real now too. HarmonyOS already has more market share than Apple (phones) in China and the international versions should be coming soon.

HarmonyOS also changes the developer environment dramatically. I have, in another life, tried developed apps for phones (which like a two-person team) and it's difficult. At the time we made iOS, Android, and Windows Phone apps, and all were a pain in the ass to keep going as a single product. We also had a website running on completely different technology, whereas smartwatches and Smart TVs were not even thought of. And I can't imagine stuff now. The tech stack has turned into spaghetti soup. In yet another life we tried to do Smart TV development and that was a rats nest also. Even within TVs there were like six OSes, and backwards compatibility was wildly unreliably. Looking at all this it was like, damn, someone should just start over. Which is what Huawei has done. It's hard getting developers onto a new system but, honestly, developers more than anybody want one.

HarmonyOS harmonizes the OSes, at least within the huge and varied Huawei ecosystem. For years you've been able to theoretically build stuff that's “developed once, across devices,” but now you can practically do it. These devices are being sold some, like the trifold phone, in massive numbers. HarmonyOS is a viable competitor to the two OSes that infest every product category because it competes in all of them. It negates the competitive disadvantage it has in any one sector by attacking all of them. They don't just replace the old user experience, they create a new one.

The simplest manifestation I've seen is that you can move files from a phone to a computer with hand gestures. But Huawei is a ‘decoupled OS’, it's not tied to any device type, so you could do much more than this. “Virtualized hardware” means that an app could agnostically a Bluetooth speaker, an external camera, sensors, a computing power from other devices at the OS level, not from a user hacking them all together. What does this mean, practically? I dunno, I could at least get a movie from my computer to my TV faster than just downloading it from the Internet, the way it is now with Airdrop.

And, more to the point, I could drop out out of the western tech ecosystem entirely, and legitimately type this not on an iPhone or a MacBook, and shut that one (reincarnating) internet commenter up forever. The guys on AliExpress will flash HarmonyOS onto Pura or Mate Huawei phones now, or I may just reverse Faxian to get the scriptures from the East this time round.